Debbie's Garden: Trees and Shrubs

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Plant: Weeping Cherry Source: Sundown Gardens Planted: Summer 2002 Blooms: Early April Notes: Thriving but gets eaten by Japanese beetles unless we spray it in time. It used to be as wide as and much shorter than the windows behind it, but it has grown quite a bit.
Plant: Magnolia Bush "Jane" Source: Sundown Gardens Planted: 3/5/04 Blooms: Early April Notes: The foliage has filled out well over the years and the bush itself has grown substantially. We have Clematis Polish Spirit growing through it which fills out the foliage nicely. We cut the clematis as much as possible each spring. Blooms again intermittently throughout the summer. We love our beautiful Jane.
Plant: Flowering Almond Source: Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/18/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Originally planted in back garden. Only 6 - 8 inches tall when planted, it still flowered like crazy its first season and was two feet tall by mid-June 2005. It continues to grow quickly and we have pruned it back to encourage more bushiness. By August 2006, it had filled in completely and was a full-blown bush three feet tall by three feet wide. It got too large for its original location in the back garden so in 2008 we moved it to the far back corner where we can enjoy its incredible beauty every spring and it can grow and grow. It didn't take well to the transplant and 2/3 of the branches died, but we just cut them off and this amazing shrub is filling in again nicely.
Plant: Pink Tree Peony Source: Sundown Gardens Quantity: 1 Planted: 10/20/05 Blooms: Early May Notes: Planted in back garden. Got this for 70% off which made it affordable. These are expensive plants, but after buying a small one and watching it die, I'm happy to have a fairly mature specimen. In 2006, it bloomed nicely in the spring but looked lousy the rest of the season. It did just the opposite in 2007 -- didn't bloom at all, but looked very healthy. By 2008, it had settled in nicely and was starting to grow and produce huge six-inch blooms. It's a beauty. The blooms last 4 - 5 days.
Plant: Tree Peony "Taiyo" Source: American Meadows Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/10/10 Notes: Planted in kitchen garden. It's two stems dried out its first summer during a major drought, but new growth appeared in 2011. No blooms yet.
Plant: Tree Peony "Luster of Jade" Source: Cricket Hill Gardens Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/18/11 Notes: Planted in back garden. Billed as a four-year-old plant. Arrived with buds on it, but appeared to be dead by the end of the summer. I discovered rodent tunnels underneath it, and I don't hold out much hope that it will survive. Nope, definitely dead.
Plant: Lilac "Beauty of Moscow" Source: Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 2 Planted: 5/29/05 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in back garden, then moved to far back garden on 5/28/06. Finally started to grow quickly in 2006. Clematis Snow Queen is planted at its base. Moved to far back corner of yard in 2007 where it can continue to grow. It continues to grow very quickly and it was eight feet tall in 2011. Produced one bloom in 2008 and two blooms in 2010. I threatened to remove it in 2011 but it can read my mind so it responded by producing several dozen blooms.
Plant: Lilac Bush Source: Spring Hill Nursery Planted: 5/9/04 Blooms: Early May Notes: This was a free gift when making a purchase at Spring Hill Nursery in Ohio on Mother's Day. It was less than a foot tall when we planted it. Moved to our back garden in 2004, then to the far back garden in 2006, then to the back corner in 2007, since it continued to outgrow its space. It is now in a location where it can grow as large as it likes.
Plant: Dwarf Japanese Maple "Ever Red" Source: Sundown Gardens Planted: 3/5/04 Notes: The tree has very small red buds on it for a week or two in spring. It's very healthy and beautiful.
Plant: Japanese Maple "Nishiki Gawa" (or "Pine Bark") Source: Seasons Gardens Planted: 10/12/05 Notes: Incredible bright red color in fall. Leaves are green with red at the tips in spring. Originally planted at the back of our property in line with our other evergreens and ornamentals. The bark is highly unusual. Moved it to the side garden in fall 2007 without any transplant shock at all, and it is growing very well.
Plant: Thuja "Green Giant" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 4 Planted: 3/25/05, 9/27/05 Notes: Planted in back yard with Norway spruce in spring and fall of 2005. These are growing extremely quickly and filling in nicely.
Plant: Norway Spruce Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 4 Planted: 3/25/05, 9/27/05 Notes: Planted in back yard with Thuja "Green Giant." These are all thriving and growing really quickly -- in some cases, even faster than the thujas next to them.
Plant: Arborvitae "Emerald Green" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 24 Planted: 9/10/04, 9/27/05 Notes: Planted 10 in place of some old evergreens in Fall 2004, then extended the line with 14 more in Fall 2005. We had to replace two of the older ones in 2005. The growth is slower than we had hoped, but we are patient. Even though these are all the same cultivar, the older ones are fuller and rounder than the newer ones, and don't look very similar. Four died in fall 2007 so we replaced them in April 2008. Two died over the summer so we replaced them in September 2008. Both of those died over the winter so we replaced them again in April 2009. They died again so we replaced them in September 2009 with younger, shorter trees. We replaced them again in Fall 2010, and in Summer 2011. We finally discovered that our trees were infested with bagworms in July 2011, which we've treated. I now hate arborvitae.
Plant: River Clump Birch Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/3/05 Notes: Planted in back yard in 2005, then moved to the front yard on 5/28/06 where it will have more room to grow. Clematis Piilu is growing into it and blends in perfectly. I'm not thrilled with this tree, and I'm campaigning to replace it with a white birch instead, but I'm losing because Tom loves it.
Plant: White Pine Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/27/05 Notes: Planted in front garden where diseased crab apple tree used to be. Took a few years to get established but is growing well now.
Plant: Dwarf Norway Spruce "Pumila" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 5 Planted: 3/14/10 Notes: These will get much wider, so we bought five with the intention of removing two when they get bigger. We removed those two in early 2011, and replaced one of the three remaining in August 2011.

Removed or Disappeared

Plant: Contorted Filbert Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/11/10 Notes: Planted in side garden. All new growth came in straight, so after a year, it just looked like an big ugly shrub that Japanese beetles love, so we removed it. Here's what it looked like when it was still contorted.
Plant: Viburnum "Blue Muffin" Source: Bluestone Perennials Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/30/08 Blooms: Mid-May Notes: Planted in back garden. Doing very well. Produced a few blooms for the first time in 2009 and produced three bright blue berries in mid-July. Produced many more blooms in 2010. Removed it in 2011 because it is boring and doesn't produce the blue berries it is famous for.
Plant: Magnolia Virginiana "Jim Wilson" Source: Sundown Gardens Planted: 8/23/08 Blooms: Early June Notes: Commonly known as a sweet bay magnolia. Its leaves turned brown every season so it never looked good, and we removed it because I got sad every time I looked at it. I replaced it with annual castor bean plants which made me happy every time I looked at them.
Plant: Kalmia "Peppermint" Source: Wayside Gardens Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/25/05 Blooms: Early June Notes: Planted in far back garden in front of evergreens. Very slow growth, but I love this shrub with its glossy evergreen leaves and beautiful peppermint-striped blooms shaped like hexagon saucers. Moved to back garden where it continues to stay extremely small, but it works better there as a small evergreen focal point. In 2007, most of the buds rotted without blooming, and many of the leaves were spotted by disease, but it recovered by blooming late and sprouting new leaves in the fall. It hasn't gotten any bigger in six years so I replaced it with a tree peony in 2011.
Plant: Beautyberry "Amethyst" Source: Park's Gardens Quantity: 1 Planted: 6/2/07 Blooms: Mid-August Notes: Planted in side garden. Produced tiny blooms along each stems in August, followed by incredible purple berries all fall. I highly recommend this plant. In 2009, it was four feet tall and six feet wide. At the end of 2009, we cut it down to the ground when we had work done on our home, and it came back just as large in 2010. Removed it in 2011 to make room for a hose reel, but I'd plant it again if I had enough room for it.
Plant: Siberian Spruce "Pimoko" Source: Seasons Gardens Quantity: 1 Planted: 10/12/05 Notes: Planted in back garden. Expensive but adorable evergreen. After extreme heat waves, a branch will die, so it's looking very sickly on one side. Finally removed it in 2010 after nearly a third of it was dead.
Plant: Juniper "Hollywood" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 8/13/06 Notes: Planted in far back garden in place of a large Rose of Sharon tree. It is shorter but much prettier and provided an evergreen privacy screen in no time. It dropped a ton of needles in summer 2007. Removed when the evergreens in front of it grew together and it was no longer needed as a privacy screen.
Plant: Mugho Pine Source: Lowe's Quantity: 3 Planted: 10/11/04 Notes: Planted just behind the weeping cherry. A few branches died early on, but eventually thrived and grew very, very slowly. Removed in August 2009 when we replaced the siding on our house.
Plant: Golden Chain Tree Source: Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 6/2/07 Notes: Planted in far back garden. Was over three feet tall and in good bareroot condition when it arrived. Moved to back corner in August 2008. No leaves appeared in 2009, just a few tiny suckers at the base of the trunk, and I declared it dead in July 2009.
Plant: Mimosa Tree Source: Nature Hills Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 5/29/07 Notes: Planted in back garden. Was nearly four feet tall and in good bareroot condition when it arrived. The beautiful foliage filled in quickly and we planted Clematis Venosa Violacea at its base. Moved it to the far back garden where it can spread out to its heart's content, but it never survived the transplant shock and we finally pronounced it dead in spring 2008. So, we planted another one from Nature Hills in the new location on 5/21/08, and vowed never to move it. In 2009, the main trunk and branches were dead, but many sprouts came out of the ground, which is not what I wanted, so I gave up.
Plant: Double Mock Orange Source: Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/3/05 Blooms: Early June Notes: Approximately two feet tall and just a few branches when it was planted in the back garden. It quickly grew to over four feet tall now and filled in well. Moved to the side garden in 2007, since it had gotten so large that it was shading the base of our evergreens. My husband and I were walking up to it in June 2008 so we could discuss what to replace it with when I finally spotted its first bloom in three years and decided to have mercy on it. That's one lucky shrub. It produced only three blooms in 2009 and there's nothing else redeeming about it, so we removed it in July 2009.
Plant: Hawthorne Tree "Winter King" Source: Sundown Gardens Planted: 8/1/03 Blooms: Early May Notes: This tree has tiny white flowers in the spring and bright red berries through the winter. The bark is beautiful and it retained its beautiful shape since we planted it. The only thing not perfect about this tree was its tendency to drop thousands and thousands of seeds, and every single one sprouts in my garden all season long. This tree got the far back garden, the kitchen garden, and the spa garden, and our side neighbor's hawthorne gets the back garden and the side garden. I can't stop the carnage of my neighbor's tree's seedling devastation, but I can stop mine. So, goodbye beautiful hawthorne, and hello sweet bay magnolia.
Plant: Cherry "Kwanza" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/27/05 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted at back of property. Clematis Hagley Hybrid was planted at its base. This was planted as a temporary privacy screen until the evergreens on either side were large enough. It was beautiful, but we no longer had room for it by fall 2008.
Plant: Cleveland Pear Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/27/05 Blooms: Early April Notes: Planted at back of property. Clematis Warsaw Nike was planted at its base. This filled out very well and had grown at least six feet. This was planted as a temporary privacy screen until the evergreens on either side were large enough. We no longer had room for it by fall 2008.
Plant: Hibiscus Moscheutos "Lord Baltimore" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 3 Planted: 7/4/05 Blooms: Mid-July Notes: Planted in back garden. We've were so happy with our Anne Arundel hibiscus that we decided to add another cultivar. This is a large bright red bloom. When we expanded our patio in September 2006, we had to move these to the far back garden, where they seem much happier. These require lots of staking. We removed them when they ran out of space due to our growing evergreens.
Plant: Chinese Dogwood "Kousa" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/27/05 Blooms: Late May Notes: Planted at back of property. Didn't bloom in 2006, only a few blooms appeared in 2007, and we got only one in 2008. This was a fairly expensive tree and it turned out to be disappointing. We removed it when the two evergreens in front of it got large enough to no longer need a tree to fill the space between them.
Plant: Honeysuckle "Pink Tatarian" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/22/06 Blooms: Early May Notes: Planted in back garden. Clematis Miniseelik was growing through it. Grew very quickly, but did not bloom in 2007, and it developed excessive growth at the ends of each branch which I finally pruned. It bloomed in 2008. After I purchased it, I read that this cultivar is considered to be invasive, so when it started growing far too quickly and too large for the space allotted, I removed it.
Plant: Bartlett Pear Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 5/27/06 Blooms: Early April Notes: Planted at back of property. Clematis Gravetye Beauty was planted at its base. Did extremely well for such an inexpensive tree, and we removed it when there wasn't room for it anymore.
Plant: Hibiscus syriacus (Pink Peony) Quantity: 1 Blooms: Early July Notes: We trimmed this plant back every year since it is higher than the roofline of the garage next to it. It attracted Japanese beetles and created thousands of hard-to-kill seedlings each spring. Finally snapped and decided that the pretty blooms weren't worth the maintenance required and removed it in June 2008.
Plant: Hibiscus syriacus "Red Heart" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 1 Planted: 7/20/03 Blooms: Early July Notes: To complete our hibiscus syriacus set, we bought a white non-peony variety. It was two feet tall when we bought it. We moved it to a sunnier location 7/31/05 and it was thriving. If only these plants didn't produce hundreds of vigorous seedlings each spring, it would still be in our garden, but my goal is to make the garden easier to maintain, and these bushes stand in my way of achieving that goal.
Plant: Plum "Big Cis" Source: Allisonville Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/3/05 Blooms: Early April Notes: Planted in back yard between Thuja "Green Giant" and Norway spruce. The Japanese beetles found it quite delicious and were drawn to it. Doing very well but we removed it in 2008 since it was planted to take up space between the thuja and spruce. Once those two started to touch, the plum's job was done.
Plant: Weigela "Carnaval" Source: Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 1 Planted: 9/18/04 Blooms: Late May Notes: Planted in back garden. Bloomed for the first time in 2006. This really filled in well and grew quickly. Removed it because it grew too large for the diminishing space it occupied between a thuja and spruce, and I had nowhere else to put it since I have so many shrubs now. It's a very nice bush and I do recommend it.
Plant: Hibiscus Moscheutos "Anne Arundel" Source: Meijer Quantity: 2 Planted: 9/7/03 Blooms: Early July Notes: These blooms are bright pink and huge. First sprouts appear in May, and quickly grow to full height within a month. I was sad to pull these in September 2006, but they were getting smothered by the weeping cherry tree in front of them and we didn't have another location for them. I do recommend these, though -- they're absolutely beautiful, even if they do require staking.
Plant: Hibiscus Moscheutos "Disco Belle Pink" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 3 Planted: 7/20/03 Blooms: Mid-July Notes: These plants produced dozens of huge dinner plate blooms. Planted in back garden. Deadheading extends the blooming season. Removed these in August 2006, because they attract too many Japanese beetles and can get messy quickly if the blossoms aren't cleaned up when they drop.
Plant: Hibiscus syriacus (White Peony) Quantity: 1 Blooms: Early July Notes: One of two large trees on the side of our house where we never get to see them. They gave the neighbors a nice show each summer, but they attract huge numbers of Japanese beetles and spawn a billion seedings in the spring, so we decided to remove one. This one stuck out over the lawn farther, so this is the one that got removed.
Plant: Hibiscus syriacus (Pink) Quantity: 2 Blooms: Early July Notes: These two huge plants were over 8 feet tall and were here when we bought the house. We removed one in 2005 when we redesigned the far back garden, and removed the other when we tired of the Japanese beetles and seedlings.
Plant: Lilac Bush Planted: Original to house Blooms: Mid-April Notes: This bush did not flower very well when it didn't get much direct sun, but it did much better after we cut down the tree that was blocking the sun. During an unseasonably warm winter, this shrub actually sported a couple of blooms in December 2004. We removed this when we finished landscaping the back part of our yard in 2005 and replaced it with a small dogwood set farther back.
Plant: Crabapple Tree - white Planted: Original to house Blooms: Mid-April Notes: We struggled with leaves falling off too soon due to fungus for many years, and finally decide to replace it with an evergreen instead. Crabapples are notorious for susceptibility to diseases, and as lovely as they are, it wasn't worth raking up diseased leaves all season.
Plant: Crabapple Tree - pink Planted: Original to house Blooms: Mid-April Notes: This was a beautiful tree that we didn't get to enjoy as much as we'd like because it was close to our neighbor's property line on the side of the house we rarely see. We removed it, which gave the grass beneath it a fighting chance of living, and planted a line of arbor vitaes between our house and our neighbor's instead.
Plant: Musa basjo (Japanese banana tree) Source: Brent and Becky's Bulbs Quantity: 1 Planted: 4/21/04 Notes: The plant was about a foot tall when it was planted in 2004, but it was six feet tall by the end of August. It produced several offshoots which we transplanted, but none of the plants survived the winter. We bought two more in 2005 which did just as well. It is supposed to be hardy in our area, but it isn't. I've read that the hardiness only applies if you mulch it very heavily. That doesn't count as hardy to me. However, the price is quite cheap for such an impressive plant. Planted another 4/28/10.